Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe Set To Collect Some Big Money Upon Retirement

Yesterday, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe was forced out of his position at the bureau, but he’s not fired. He’s been placed on something called “terminal leave,” meaning he’s still employed by the FBI but will exit in March. In December, it was reported that McCabe has planned to leave his post once he became eligible for his government pension. He’s expected to collect almost $2 million for his, uh—service (via Free Beacon):

FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is set to receive a nearly $2 million pension, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

The top law enforcement official, who has come under scrutiny for overseeing the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server, stepped aside on Monday. McCabe took early retirement, which he was eligible for after serving at the bureau for over 20 years.

McCabe joined the FBI in 1996 and worked his way up to high paying executive service positions. He was serving as the assistant director in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office until July 2015, when he was named the FBI's associate deputy director, carrying an ES Level 4 pay scale.

The Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) calls for law enforcement officers to receive 1.7 percent of the officer's average highest salary over a period of three consecutive years per year for the agent's first 20 years of service. Additionally, they receive 1 percent of the highest average salary for each year exceeding 20 years of service. McCabe served 21 years.

McCabe and the FBI have been the focus of intense scrutiny due to allegations of stonewalling congressional committees, either refusing to turn over or dragging their feet in releasing key documents relating to the Trump dossier, Fusion GPS, and the Strzok-Page texts—all speak to the credibility to the bureau.

FBI agent Peter Strzok was a top counterintelligence agent who was involved in the Hillary Clinton email probe and the initial investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. He signed off on the latter, which began in July of 2016; Special Counsel Robert Mueller now runs the show over there. During the 2016 election, Strzok was having an extramarital affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with the two sending each other tens of thousands of texts, scores of them anti-Trump and pro-Hillary. During the email probe, Page texted Strzok about how she was worried that the investigation might be going too hard on Clinton; the two are quite clear that they really, really, wanted her to be president.

Concerning Russia, Strzok mentioned in an August 15, 2016 text about an “insurance policy,” which some think is a reference to the largely unverified Trump dossier that is said to have been used as the basis to secure warrants against members of the Trump team. The detail with that saga continues to drip. Evidence of bias, an affair, cryptic mentions of insurance policies, and possibly placing the thumb on the scale of a sensitive investigation into whether a presidential candidate mishandled classified information. Of course, people on the Hill will be wondering what the hell is going on at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Strzok was removed from the Russia probe last summer once Mueller found out about the texts and was reassigned to human resources.